The Spirits of the Sun

3

...and started falling down down and down. 

She couldn't help put scream as she and the man fell down what seemed like a bottomless pit. Streaks of colour flashed by her eyes as she and the man fell, making her eyes water.

Finally, with a twist, the tunnel, or whatever it was, spat them out in front of a colossal shining structure that shimmered, and reflected light as it sat beneath the sun. She had to squint to see the building itself. 

The man led her inside the building through the gate and as she stepped inside, she felt a breeze of cool air collide with her face and then the blinding light readjusted to a more suitable level. 

"Stay here, I'll be back in a moment."

And with that, the man disappeared into a hallway and left her staring at the glistening crystal walls of the building. A mural on the walls caught her eyes and she wandered over to look at it, having nothing better to do.

As she stepped towards the mural, a blue glowing figure appeared in front of her, and she fell back shrieking. 

"Sorry to startle you, dear, I would offer you my hand, if not for the fact that I'm intangible in my form." said the figure as she smiled apologetically.

"You're...... you're a hologram..." said Natasha in surprise.

"Well, hologram isn't quite the word I would use to call a 50,000 year old intelligent, speaking being. I'm a Spherex, and I'm Wyzen, at your service." she said as she did a slight curtsy.

"You're 50,000 years old? But ... you look so young...."

And indeed she did, because she looked no more than 30 to Natasha. It was hard to imagine the kind smiling thing floating in front of her was in reality an overaged granny without a body.

"Looks can be deceiving, I'm exactly 50,024 years, 6 months, 23 days, 19 hours, 54 minutes, 36 seconds old!" and she beamed at her. Literally. As her body glowed brighter as she smiles wider. "Now who would you be? I don't think I've sen you around here before?"

"I'm Natasha Emerson."

"Nice to meet you."

An awkward silence ensued for a while, before Natasha asked, "What's that mural behind you depicting?" as she manoeuvred around Wyzen to see it clearly.

"Ah! That's a mural of The Creation Story! Haven't you heard of the story before?"

"No... not really, I'm new here."

"Well, I might as well tell you then! This is the story of how our world came to be. So a long long time ago, back when the universe was nothing but an empty void, our ancestors, The Ancient Spirits were in a constant war with each other, a war that had lasted since the beginning of time. They were all-powerful beings. At some point, The Elders, which are the good spirits, managed to find a way around The Twisted, the bad side, and succeeded in trapping them and forced them to form the Sun and the various stars in the universe. And this was called something like the "Big Bang" by your scientists, though of course they are only understanding a tiny fraction of what happened there. The Elders also harnessed the energy remaining in the Twisted to create the remainder of the universe. Finally, the cast a spell that binder The Twisted to the structure of the universe, so that their energy would forever sustain the universe's existence and make sure that The Twisted could never again be free, but remain dormant in the core of the Sun. Where they would forever be only able to do good to everything, by making conditions liveable. The Elders, then embodied themselves in the form of the species we have on Earth, the highest of The Elders forming the leaders of our planet's intelligent species. That includes the elves, the dwarves, the centaurs..."

"Wait, wait , wait. You're saying elves are real?"

"And dwarves, centaurs, ogres and many more. Why are you so surprised? You're talking to an intelligent 'hologram' so why would that surprise you?"

"I guess I just wasn't expecting it..." blinked Natasha. "It's just a lot of stuff to take in, in one go..."

"You're darn right it's a lot to take in!" interrupted a cheery voice behind her. She turned around to face a oldish man with swarthy skin who was observing her carefully from behind a set of cloudy spectacles. "Welcome, to Enlightenment! I'm Verne, Conclave Supremacy. I trust you've already met Mr.Knaves over here," he said brightly, nodding at the man who had brought her here. He stretched out his hand and shook Natasha's firmly.

"So... Mr.Knaves says you have no knowledge of magic before the incident today?"

"Yeah..."

"That's odd, we've never had an Unseeing as old as you are, but no matter..." he said thoughtfully.

"Don't mind me asking but what is an Unseeing?"

"Oh, we use that to call anyone who has magic but doesn't yet know that they can use it, or hasn't seen the magical community before."

"How did I do magic back there? I've never been able to do that before."

"Well," said Mr.Knaves, "magic normally surfaces after something triggers it, it's a  dormant power and needs something to happen in order to make it start working. So normally it would be a desperate situation or critical situation. In many cases this happens in front of people who have no knowledge of magic, that's why we have people like me to help find the people related and make sure they forget everything about magic before things escalate, " he said smiling.

Councillor Verne cleared his throat and said, " Questions aside, we're going to have to decide on some more important things, like where you're going to live now for example. Since you're an Unseeing without family, we're going to put you up for adoption."

"Don't worry," he said as Natasha gave a horrified look, "we don't have orphanages here, every person will have a nice loving family to live with. But for now you'll have to live with Mr. Knaves for a while, sound good to you?"

Natasha nodded meekly and said nothing.

"Don't look so grim, I can assure you that the magical world will by far outshine the dirty run-down orphanage you used to live in." added Mr.Knaves.

"Oh and Wyzen," asked Verne, "I know you might not yet be up to it, but would you care to be Natasha's mentor?"

"Wyzen hesitated for a second before bowing stiffly and saying, "it would be my honour High Councillor Verne."

"Perfect, well, I have other things to attend to now, so I'll leave you to the care of Wyzen, she'll answer any questions you have about our world and bring you around the city of Enlightenment. She'll also be your mentor throughout your school life. After she's done brining you around the city she'll bring you back to Mr. Knaves residency. Goodbye Natasha, I wish I had more time, but being a Councillor isn't exactly very relaxing. I'll be seeing you around, ok?"

And before she could answer, the air around him shimmered and he just disappeared.

"Woah, where'd he go?" she asked as she gaped at the spot Councillor Verne had been standing on a moment ago.

"Ah don't be so surprised, he's a Councillor, they have special powers other people don't have. He just did transplaced himself, basically he moved from here to wherever else he had to be without using a Portal."

"We have a lot to see and you have a lot to learn, or rather re-learn before the day is out. I guess we'd better get started," said Wyzen. She stepped to one side and opened another shimmering hole, the Portal and stepped inside. 

When Mr.Knaves saw her hesitation, he called out " Just step through, you'll be there in a jiffy."

Natasha took a deep breath and ran jumped through the Portal before she could second guess her actions, and fell into the unknown.